By Yehouda Shenhav
An intensive campaign to secure official political and legal recognition of
Jews from Arab lands as refugees has been going on for the past three years.
This campaign has tried to create an analogy between Palestinian refugees and
Mizrahi Jews, whose origins are in Middle Eastern countries - depicting both
groups as victims of the 1948 War of Independence. The campaign's proponents
hope their efforts will prevent conferral of what is called a "right of return"
on Palestinians, and reduce the size of the compensation Israel is liable to be
asked to pay in exchange for Palestinian property appropriated by the state
guardian of "lost" assets.
The idea of drawing this analogy constitutes a mistaken reading of history,
imprudent politics, and moral injustice.
Bill Clinton launched the campaign in July 2000 in an interview with Israel's
Channel One, in which he disclosed that an agreement to recognize Jews from Arab
lands as refugees materialized at the Camp David summit. Ehud Barak then stepped
up and enthusiastically expounded on his "achievement" in an interview with Dan
Margalit.
Past Israeli governments had refrained from issuing declarations of this sort.
First, there has been concern that any such proclamation will underscore what
Israel has tried to repress and forget: the Palestinians' demand for return.
Second, there has been anxiety that such a declaration would encourage property
claims submitted by Jews against Arab states and, in response, Palestinian
counter-claims to lost property. Third, such declarations would require Israel
to update its schoolbooks and history, and devise a new narrative by which the
Mizrahi Jews journeyed to the country under duress, without being fueled by
Zionist aspirations. That would be a post-Zionist narrative.
At Camp David, Ehud Barak decided that the right of return issue was not really
on the agenda, so he thought he had the liberty to indulge the Mizrahi analogy
rhetorically. Characteristically, rather than really dealing with issues as a
leader, in a fashion that might lead to mutual reconciliation, Barak acted like
a shopkeeper.
This hot potato was cooked up for Barak and Clinton by Bobby Brown, prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu's adviser for Diaspora affairs, and his colleagues,
along with delegates from organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and
the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
WOJAC fails
A few months ago Dr. Avi Becker, secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress,
and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents,
persuaded Prof. Irwin Cotler, a member of Canada's parliament and an expert on
international law, to join their campaign. An article by Becker published a few
weeks ago in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz (July 20), entitled "Respect for Jews
from Arab lands," constituted one step in this public campaign. The article said
little about respect for Mizrahi Jews. On the contrary - it trampled their
dignity.
The campaign's results thus far are meager. Its umbrella organization, Justice
for Jews From Arab Countries, has not inspired much enthusiasm in Israel, or
among Jews overseas. It has yet to extract a single noteworthy declaration from
any major Israeli politician. This comes as no surprise: The campaign has a
forlorn history whose details are worth revisiting. Sometimes recounting history
has a very practical effect.
The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC) was founded in the
1970s. Yigal Allon, then foreign minister, worried that WOJAC would become a
hotbed of what he called "ethnic mobilization." But WOJAC was not formed to
assist Mizrahi Jews; it was invented as a deterrent to block claims harbored by
the Palestinian national movement, particularly claims related to compensation
and the right of return.
At first glance, the use of the term "refugees" for Mizrahi Jews was not
unreasonable. After all, the word had occupied a central place in historical and
international legal discourses after World War II. United Nations Security
Council Resolution 242 from 1967 referred to a just solution to "the problem of
refugees in the Middle East." In the 1970s, Arab countries tried to fine-tune
the resolution's language so that it would refer to "Arab refugees in the Middle
East," but the U.S. government, under the direction of ambassador to the UN
Arthur Goldberg, opposed this revision. A working paper prepared in 1977 by
Cyrus Vance, then U.S. secretary of state, ahead of scheduled international
meetings in Geneva, alluded to the search for a solution to the "problem of
refugees," without specifying the identities of those refugees. Israel lobbied
for this formulation. WOJAC, which tried to introduce use of the concept "Jewish
refugees," failed.
The Arabs were not the only ones to object to the phrase. Many Zionist Jews from
around the world opposed WOJAC's initiative. Organizers of the current campaign
would be wise to study the history of WOJAC, an organization which
transmogrified over its years of activity from a Zionist to a post-Zionist
entity. It is a tale of unexpected results arising from political activity.
`We are not refugees'
The WOJAC figure who came up with the idea of "Jewish refugees" was Yaakov Meron,
head of the Justice Ministry's Arab legal affairs department. Meron propounded
the most radical thesis ever devised concerning the history of Jews in Arab
lands. He claimed Jews were expelled from Arab countries under policies enacted
in concert with Palestinian leaders - and he termed these policies "ethnic
cleansing." Vehemently opposing the dramatic Zionist narrative, Meron claimed
that Zionism had relied on romantic, borrowed phrases ("Magic Carpet,"
"Operation Ezra and Nehemiah") in the description of Mizrahi immigration waves
to conceal the "fact" that Jewish migration was the result of "Arab expulsion
policy." In a bid to complete the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi
Jews, WOJAC publicists claimed that the Mizrahi immigrants lived in refugee
camps in Israel during the 1950s (i.e., ma'abarot or transit camps), just like
the Palestinian refugees.
The organization's claims infuriated many Mizrahi Israelis who defined
themselves as Zionists. As early as 1975, at the time of WOJAC's formation,
Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu declared: "We are not refugees. [Some of us]
came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations."
Shlomo Hillel, a government minister and an active Zionist in Iraq, adamantly
opposed the analogy: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as
that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."
In a Knesset hearing, Ran Cohen stated emphatically: "I have this to say: I am
not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that
this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define
me as a refugee."
The opposition was so vociferous that Ora Schweitzer, chair of WOJAC's political
department, asked the organization's secretariat to end its campaign. She
reported that members of Strasburg's Jewish community were so offended that they
threatened to boycott organization meetings should the topic of "Sephardi Jews
as refugees" ever come up again. Such remonstration precisely predicted the
failure of the current organization, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries to
inspire enthusiasm for its efforts.
Also alarmed by WOJAC's stridency, the Foreign Ministry proposed that the
organization bring its campaign to a halt on the grounds that the description of
Mizrahi Jews as refugees was a double-edged sword. Israel, ministry officials
pointed out, had always adopted a stance of ambiguity on the complex issue
raised by WOJAC. In 1949, Israel even rejected a British-Iraqi proposal for
population exchange - Iraqi Jews for Palestinian refugees - due to concerns that
it would subsequently be asked to settle "surplus refugees" within its own
borders.
The foreign minister deemed WOJAC a Phalangist, zealous group, and asked that it
cease operating as a "state within a state." In the end, the ministry closed the
tap on the modest flow of funds it had transferred to WOJAC. Then justice
minister Yossi Beilin fired Yaakov Meron from the Arab legal affairs department.
Today, no serious researcher in Israel or overseas embraces WOJAC's extreme
claims.
Moreover, WOJAC, which intended to promote Zionist claims and assist Israel in
its conflict with Palestinian nationalism, accomplished the opposite: It
presented a confused Zionist position regarding the dispute with the
Palestinians, and infuriated many Mizrahi Jews around the world by casting them
as victims bereft of positive motivation to immigrate to Israel. WOJAC
subordinated the interests of Mizrahi Jews (particularly with regard to Jewish
property in Arab lands) to what it erroneously defined as Israeli national
interests. The organization failed to grasp that defining Mizrahi Jews as
refugees opens a Pandora's box and ultimately harms all parties to the dispute,
Jews and Arabs alike.
Lessons not learned
The World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations learned nothing from
this woeful legacy. Hungry for a magic solution to the refugee question, they
have adopted
the refugee analogy and are lobbying for it all over the world. It would be
interesting to hear the education minister's reaction to the historical
narrative presented nowadays by these Jewish organizations. Should Limor Livnat
establish a committee of ministry experts to revise school textbooks in
accordance with this new post-Zionist genre?
Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy
drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees
did not want to leave Palestine. Many Palestinian communities were destroyed in
1948, and some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled, or fled, from the borders of
historic Palestine. Those who left did not do so of their own volition.
In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of
the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some came of their own free will;
others arrived against their will. Some lived comfortably and securely in Arab
lands; others suffered from fear and oppression.
The history of the "Mizrahi aliyah" (immigration to Israel) is complex, and
cannot be subsumed within a facile explanation. Many of the newcomers lost
considerable property, and there can be no question that they should be allowed
to submit individual property claims against Arab states (up to the present day,
the State of Israel and WOJAC have blocked the submission of claims on this
basis).
The unfounded, immoral analogy between Palestinian refugees and Mizrahi
immigrants needlessly embroils members of these two groups in a dispute,
degrades the dignity of many Mizrahi Jews, and harms prospects for genuine
Jewish-Arab reconciliation.
Jewish anxieties about discussing the question of 1948 are understandable. But
this question will be addressed in the future, and it is clear that any peace
agreement will
have to contain a solution to the refugee problem. It's reasonable to assume
that as final status agreements between Israelis and Palestinians are reached,
an international fund will be formed with the aim of compensating Palestinian
refugees for the hardships
caused them by the establishment of the State of Israel. Israel will surely be
asked to contribute generously to such a fund.
In this connection, the idea of reducing compensation obligations by designating
Mizrahi immigrants as refugees might become very tempting. But it is wrong to
use scarecrows to chase away politically and morally valid claims advanced by
Palestinians. The "creative accounting" manipulation concocted by the refugee
analogy only adds insult to injury, and widens the psychological gap between
Jews and Palestinians. Palestinians might abandon hopes of redeeming a right of
return (as, for example, Palestinian pollster Dr. Khalil Shikai claims); but
this is not a result to be adduced via creative accounting.
Any peace agreement must be validated by Israeli recognition of past wrongs and
suffering, and the forging of a just solution. The creative accounts proposed by
the
refugee analogy turns Israel into a morally and politically spineless
bookkeeper.
Yehouda Shenhav is a professor at Tel Aviv University and the editorof Theory
Criticism, an Israeli journal in the area of critical theory and cultural
studies.
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